


Everyone knows I am going to hell

by Resri



Series: Too vicious to tell [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Choking, Daud is a bastard, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Jessamine Kaldwin Lives, Little comfort, Loyalists, M/M, Martin and Daud have a past, Not in a sexy way, POV Teague Martin, Past Relationship(s), Religious Imagery & Symbolism, So is Martin, old hurt, the loyalist conspiracy happens a little differently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:15:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22513096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resri/pseuds/Resri
Summary: “You had me rescue a Whaler,” Attano finally spoke, blunt and to the point.“Yes.”“So he can lead his master right to our doorstep?”“Perhaps the enemy of our enemy can be a friend,” Martin answered.“Or perhaps you invited our doom.”History happens a little differently. A group of men who would become the loyalists are tipped off to the planned assassination of the Empressbeforeit happens, and Corvo can save her life. Now in hiding while the Lord Regent has his men scour the city for them, Martin calls upon an old aquaintance in search for help. After all, the past rarely stays where it belongs, but some lies are worth living. Even if those lies pertain to a desperate Overseer and the Knife of Dunwall.
Relationships: Daud/Teague Martin
Series: Too vicious to tell [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620688
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	Everyone knows I am going to hell

**Author's Note:**

> After my gf read this and complained about the feelings, I had to remind her that she doesn't care about Martin, so sorry in advance XD
> 
> Also, this might become part of a series. Let me know what you think :D

The nights he spent in the stock on Holger Square had certainly left their mark on Martin. His lungs were constantly trying to eject themselves from his body, violent coughing fits leaving him gasping for air. His ribs hurt, the muscles in his sides were sore, but he was conscious. Something that couldn’t be said about his room mate. When Attano had neared Martin in the stocks, the disgraced Overseer had promised him a drink. And then, once the shackles had been off and he’d staggered to his feet, he had promised Attano a powerful ally if he could just pick up a prisoner from within the Abbey. How the Lord Protector felt about the request, and later about the unconscious young man slung over his shoulder, Martin could not tell. The mask did a formidable job of hiding identity and emotion of its wearer. Attano didn’t talk much in general. Many members of high society liked to explain that the Lord Protector was an idiot. In Martin’s not-so-humble opinion, though, the man just knew when to shut the Void up. It was a quality many lacked. The young man Martin had told him to rescue from the Overseers’ interrogation room didn’t wake on the entire way to the Hounds Pit Pub, not even when Attano had carried him into their makeshift infirmary slung over his shoulder, nor had he stirred since. Maybe he had come to at some point, and had simply decided to play dead, one couldn’t be sure. Martin had joined him in the room on the first floor that none other than Sokolov himself commandeered, and graciously left the right to the first treatment to the man he only knew as Thomas. As he watched the Royal physician work, Pendleton slunk in to inform Martin of the happenings during his absence. The Empress had been wounded in the failed assassination attempt, a graze on her side, which made Sokolov’s retrieval a priority over Martin’s rescue. She was on the way to a full recovery, though, so at least his torment of the last few days had not been in vain. 

“Who is this?” Pendleton asked as if he had only now noticed the other occupant of the room. Martin wondered if Treavor was only playing an idiot in order to stay unnoticed by his brothers as much as possible, or if he simply wasn’t the sharpest knife up their sleeves. The symbol burned into Thomas’ left hand, hanging limply from the bed, was unmistakably arcane, even if one didn’t know the meaning behind it. The Royal Protector had undoubtedly seen it, and what he learned about his identity in the Abbey’s halls could easily be guessed. He hadn’t let anything slip in front of the others earlier, but Martin wouldn’t be surprised if he had gone directly to his Empress to tattle. Then again, there had been a piece of cloth wrapped around the man’s own left hand when he had appeared on Holger Square, silent as a shadow. Martin had to wait and see how the Lord Protector would act in the upcoming days. 

“A guest,” he simply answered Pendleton’s inquiry. 

“Friend of yours?”

“No,” Martin said, trying to keep the sneer out of his voice. “A… friend of an associate.”

“I see,” Pendleton answered, obviously not seeing at all, and left.

Sokolov declared Thomas out of critical condition, and turned his attention to Martin. Bruised ribs and a hacking cough did not mix well, as it turned out, but he received a bitter syrup to ease the strain on his convulsing lungs. 

“Associate, you say,” Sokolov spoke in his scornful way. He started packing up his instruments, eyes straying back to Thomas and his marked hand. Something like hunger lay in them, and Martin was reminded of the inventor’s supposed fascination with the Outsider. Whispers of studies and experiments had made their way to the Abbey. 

“Say, Martin, do you associate with Whalers often?” 

“Not more often than the nobility of Dunwall in general. Why, do you need a referral?” 

“No, I just find it funny that a man of faith would lower himself to the level of heretics and killers.” Sokolov’s opinion about faith, or Martin’s hypocrisy, could easily be discerned. He didn’t let it bother him. Instead he answered, “You have dealt with the High Overseer often enough to know that the current leadership of the Abbey leaves much to be desired. The end, in this case, must justify the means, even if the means are heresy.” 

Sokolov snorted at the explanation, obviously not taking Martin’s answer at face value. Fair enough. 

“As for the killers,” he continued, watching the inventor closely, “I am afraid my associate is on the former spymaster’s and current Lord Regent’s payroll. If we wish to keep our dear Empress alive and well, warming him to our cause might be necessary.”

Sokolov’s features twisted in a grimace. He was a vulgar, selfish pig, but he had a soft spot for the Empress and her daughter. He wouldn’t let some minor obsession get in the way of their safety. At least, that’s what Martin hoped. 

~

The day ended soon after. Sokolov came by one last time to check on Thomas and Martin, stinking like whiskey, and turned in for the night. Attano and Havelock followed in his wake to present Martin with Campbell’s black book. Martin assured them that he could translate it, but it would take some time. They discussed plans for the upcoming days, which was mostly laying low and organising allies and supplies, until Havelock, too, left. Only Attano dawdled, hovering at the window. He still wore a handkerchief tied around his hand, but a different one than before. Martin let the silence build.

“You had me rescue a Whaler,” Attano finally spoke, blunt and to the point. 

“Yes.”

“So he can lead his master right to our doorstep?”

“I just spent the last three days in the stocks for helping _you_. If I wanted to betray the Empress, I could have done so more easily.” 

As if on cue, a coughing fit ripped through Martin, and it took quite a while until he could regain his breath. Attano didn’t say anything more, just kept on staring and waiting. His eyes were dark, very unlike another Serkonan’s Martin knew well. They had the same ability to pierce right down to his soul, though. 

“I have a plan,” he finally added. Attano still held his silence. _I know_ , his face said. _That’s what worries me_. He’d nearly seen his Empress murdered and his princess kidnapped, and was now dependent on the help of a group of men that were self serving at best. The distrust was understandable. But he had a plan, cooked up by rumors and back alley whispers, by reading between the lines of censored newspaper articles.  
The Whalers were stretched thin, he knew. Fighting on two fronts while still doing their work. Since Burrows had taken over, declared the Empress dead and her daughter kidnapped by a traitorous Attano, both the City Watch and the Abbey had been cut lose. They were tearing through the city, murdering and stealing and fighting street wars instead of stabilizing a teetering society. The Watch searched for the Loyalists, for the Empress Burrows had to assume was yet alive, for the princess he needed to legitimize his claim to the throne, and for Attano, who needed to die as a scapegoat. But they had also posted a higher bounty on Daud, for reasons that hadn’t made sense until Havelock told Martin how they came about the information that the Empress was to die.  
Meanwhile the Abbey’s machinations had taken on inquisition like levels. Houses were raided, people were taken in the night, the hunt for heretics and Abbey adversaries bloodier than ever since the Empress couldn’t rebuff them anymore. If the whereabouts of the Whalers had been a known fact, a squadron of Overseers would have stormed their hideout, armed with music boxes and wolfhounds in a second. No, Daud no longer had Burrows’ favor. Or maybe Burrows had no longer Daud’s? It was hard to say who had caused the final rift in a working relationship that had been rather antagonistic since the beginning. Martin had heard more than one complaint about it from the Knife himself. Daud despised the Spymaster, but it had been smarter to work for him than against him. More coin, more security, more blind eyes. So Daud had done his bidding. Not any longer. 

This was all information Martin felt not inclined to share with Attano, though. Or anyone else, for that matter. It would only lead to questions, and their answers were both private and dangerous. More so for him than for Daud, who was who he was. Martin, not so much. The past never stayed where it belonged, but he had learned over the years that some lies were worth living. 

“I happen to know that Burrows offered the hit on the Empress to the city’s most notorious assassin first for obvious reasons, yet it was a group of Tower guards that did it in the end,” Martin explained finally, choosing his words carefully. 

“And how did you come by that information?”

“One gets to know many people in precarious stages of life in the duty of an Overseer. They all need an open ear to tell their sins to and lighten the burden on their souls. I hear things.”

It was obvious how not impressed Attano was with this explanation, so Martin pressed on. “Perhaps the enemy of our enemy can indeed be a friend.” 

“Or perhaps you invited our doom,” the Lord Protector grumbled. 

“Like I said, I have a plan. We’ll see how well it worked if I survive the upcoming days. Just-” and Martin hesitated only a moment, before warning, “stay by her majesty’s side in the near future, just in case,” unnecessarily. Attano gave him a look that conveyed his opinion of Martin’s intellect. 

“Your neck,” he simply said in the end, took the black book from the bedside table, and left. Something told Martin he wouldn’t mourn his untimely death, should it occur. 

~

His incessant coughing must have chased everybody from the first floor, if they sought to get some real sleep. It was the middle of the night, and his scratching lungs would not let Martin rest. He imagined Havelock and Pendleton were still up, down in the bar room of the pub, scheming their own schemes. The Empress and her entourage were in the free standing building at the water’s edge, where Attano would see anybody nearing. On the other side of the room, Martin would occasionally watch Thomas in his fitful sleep. It was induced by some tincture Sokolov had administered to keep the young man under for the night. His dreams seemed unkind. 

After another coughing fit had Martin breathless and exhausted, he sunk back into his bunk and just breathed for a moment. 

“And I wondered why nobody was in their beds this late at night,” came a gruff whisper, making Martin jolt up into a sitting position. He nearly choked again. Only one lamp was lit, shrouding the room in yellow light and blue shadows. In front of the window stood a dark figure. Martin didn’t have to see his features to know who the visitor was. That voice haunted him enough. Daud closed the window carefully and stepped into the room. He only spared Martin a cursory glance before focusing his attention on Thomas. 

“That was quick,” Martin finally croaked, taking in the broad back covered by a High Overseer red coat as Daud inspected his sleeping Whaler. The choice of color had been a point of contest between them ever since Daud had started wearing it instead of the usual blue. In the beginning, Martin had mocked it, had asked if Daud wanted to change careers now and join Martin in the Abbey. Daud had only answered that he didn’t feel the need to change allegiances as often as he changed his boots. The dig had stung more than he liked to admit. Daud knew that the past weighed heavy on Martin, and his words could be as sharp as his blade. _Which is more powerful - the knife or the tongue?_ It depended on the wielder, Martin had concluded, some time after he and Daud had officially parted ways, but before the following fugue feast. Nothing one did during the fugue was real, after all.  
Now, whenever he looked upon that coat and the man within, he wondered if Daud had not become what he most despised. A religious leader to his followers, a murderous highpriest to a violent sect. The god was the same, even if they stood on different sides of the spectrum. Daud denied it, called the Outsider a bastard and Martin’s teachings populist superstition. But there had been a time, long ago, before they had even come to Dunwall, when they both had fled into religion and each others’ arms to flee their pasts. Yet they were still being consumed by it, in different ways but slowly and surely all the same. It had broken many things between and within them, but those were old wounds. Martin told himself he didn’t feel their ache when Daud answered, “No need for Thomas to be with your kind any longer than necessary,” betraying his worry for his Whaler. There was anger in that voice, too, for the pain that was suffered at Overseers’ hands. Why had Thomas not killed himself, like the Whaler that had been captured by the Abbey before? Had the boy been scared? Or had the Overseers learned their lesson and taken his gloves away before he could use the poison needle? The fact that his hands were bare would suggest so. 

Martin couldn’t resist his next words. “Why not save him yourself, then? Attano did so single handedly.” He said it flippantly, knowing full well that these words would cut deeply, and that they would do nothing to endear himself to Daud. He could be grateful, he supposed, that the colorful assortment of powers at Daud’s disposal did not include the evil eye yet, or Martin would have perished that very moment. Strange, how he felt both satisfaction and guilt.  
It wasn’t often that Daud was left speechless, though in the few cases one of them won their verbal sparring, it was usually Martin. The victory would often burn brightly in his chest, a rush of triumph over an opponent so powerful, so wily. Then it would sink to his stomach like lead, when the perverse pleasure of hurting one he felt so strongly for ebbed away. He wondered if it was the same for Daud, if their love and hate poisoned him as well. Maybe they had been the poison all along, maybe whatever they shared between them was just a symptom. 

Daud sneered, “What do you want from me, Martin? You took him to get my attention, you have it. Now spit it out before I lose my patience.” 

“Who says I want something? Maybe I just did you a favor because I knew you needed it?”

“We don’t just _do_ things for each other anymore,” Daud answered, which was true. “And favors are worth more than gold in this city.” 

Favors, he called them. Greed, extortion, threats, and the pure, basic will to survive were more accurate descriptions for the transactions that had the Whalers so well informed and equipped. Some people fell into that web of lies and bloody truths because of their heresy, getting lured in by the stink of dark magic surrounding Daud. Some thought that losing their souls was better than losing money. 

“Alright then,” Martin said. “I did you a favor, I want it returned. We have a few choices to make in the upcoming week, concerning all the Empire. They will even be to your gain, I think.” 

“Choices?” Daud scoffed. “Nothing you and your cohorts can offer me would ever be to my gain.”

“There is the obvious choice of regent, I think.”

“Burrows or the Empress, I don’t care who sits the throne. All nobles are the same to me.”

“If that was true, you would have taken the contract. I know Burrows wanted you to do it, and I also know who tipped the Lord Protector off.” 

“Your merry band of misfits, as I recall.”

“Sure, yes, but how did Havelock find out? From a former soldier of his, who had simply _heard some rumors somewhere_? I know the influence of your network when I see it, Daud.”

Daud seemed unimpressed with his conclusions. He finished checking Thomas over, apparently finding his condition passable, and turned to Martin with a glare and crossed arms. 

“Glare as much as you want, your lies mean nothing to me. You spared the Empress,” Martin finished triumphantly. 

“And look what it got me,” Daud finally caved, making a sharp gesture in his Whaler’s direction. “Burrows and the Abbey are hunting for my men. Thomas wasn’t the only one, just the latest before your lot marched into the Flooded District, armed with music boxes and your Void damned mutts!” 

“What?!” Martin squawked, his glee washed away. He knew his shock was under scrutiny as Daud’s glare turned sharper than ever. He hadn’t known. The Overseers had found the Whalers after all? How long had they known, how had they found out? Had someone told _his_ secret? Did his brothers find out of his past with the Knife of Dunwall, or had he been saved from that particular indignity by already being in the stocks? They would have killed him then and there, surely, if they had known. But what of the attack, then? Daud stood before him now, obviously alive. He didn’t appear to be hurt, and something like relief washed over Martin before he could forbid it. Daud’s presence spelled nothing good for the Overseers, after all. Had the Knife and his heretics been victorious while his brethren’s bodies lay broken and rotting, he wondered. How did he feel about that?

“I forgot. You were indisposed at the time,” Daud said, the words like vinegar dripping from his mouth. “Hume led a squad into the District while I was away. They surprised my men. He had the glorious idea that no reinforcements were needed. He already carried a letter of victory around,” Daud bit out, clearly insulted beyond belief. Martin’s chest got tight when he imagined how he might have gotten a hold of that letter. Hume was no friend to Martin, but he was a man of the Abbey. But so was Campbell, and Martin had gladly let Attano be the High Overseer’s demise. 

“How did they find you?” Martin asked, and at Daud’s dark, dark look, he held up his hands in a plea. “I did not speak a word of it, I swear.” All it earned him was an eye roll.

“Not everything is about you. Hume had the information from a third party.”

“What third party?”

There was a complicated expression on his face, obviously debating how much to tell Martin. If it was worth it. He finally growled, “Let’s just say Burrows and his circle of traitors isn’t the only problem the Empress has,” settling for being his illusive, unhelpful self. 

“What does that mean?!” 

Martin raised his voice, worry for their mission, the city, himself, overtaking him. It caused something in his lungs to rattle free, and a coughing fit wrecked him for what felt like ages while Daud looked on impassively. When Martin had caught himself again, Daud spoke. 

“A riddle wrapped in a mystery. Forget it, it’s nothing you or your Empress could do anything about. I’m handling it.”

“You and your mysteries,” Martin hissed, and the words felt like curses. A long time ago, Martin had been a mystery to Daud, and Daud to him. They had just met the only way fate would allow, in blood and violence and death. Daud had spared him then, because he had seen something in Martin’s eyes that he didn’t comprehend. They had been joined at the hip ever since. It had been exciting to have all that restless, compulsive focus solely on him, to be found out by someone with such an intense need to understand. The problem was, though, that at some point Daud had known all there was to know. The mysteries were all unraveled, and Daud’s compulsion led him further. First to the Outsider, and then to all the power he could amass. The following years, the blood shed that would give him a title more feared and revered than any noble’s, was just an attempt to keep the high going. Martin understood, in a way. He, too, was on the desperate search for answers. The difference was that Daud gloried in the hunt while Martin seeked for the end, for a way to unburden his soul. They had drifted apart in their obsessions, losing the understanding they had reached when they had thought to be each other’s answer to the question. They never were, Martin thought, looking at Daud now, or maybe they could have been, had they been better men. Either way, he was angry for many reasons. He always was. Anger made his tongue sharp, and secrets he couldn’t control made him anxious. 

“Let me be the judge of that. I’m not certain I should trust your handling of anything concerning the Empress.”

“My involvement has nothing to do with the Empress or your little conspiracy,” Daud said harshly. “They were in league with the Abbey, and they attacked my men, _in my base_.”

“Maybe it is time you chose a side, then, when one is hunting you so thoroughly. You wouldn’t want something like this to happen again, would you?”

Martin knew before the words left his mouth that they would be a mistake, but it did nothing to stop them. Daud’s own anger was palpable, exuding from his piercing eyes and deeply creased brows, from the hard set of his lips and the muscle twitching in his jaw. He was good at being angry. They had that in common, too. An explosive mixture that had burned them both often enough. 

“Don’t presume to make me choose between you and my people,” Daud said, calm as a bolder. Hard, cold, ready to crush one stupid enough to tempt fate. “You wouldn’t like the outcome.”

Martin ignored the warning, both the implied and the outright spoken one. “You owe me!”

“Excuse me?” Daud asked, offended by Martin’s presumptioness. 

“Your network is built on favors and debts, so you should understand the concept. I saved your man’s life. You owe me. A life for a life,” Martin declared smugly, but the longer Daud stared down at him, his expression tight and his eyes thunderous, the more his face fell. Daud finally said, “Alright,” like it was nothing, like he gave up and let Martin win. Before he could question this, though, Daud stepped to his side, and closed his hand around Martin’s neck. Eyes opened wide in shock, Martin’s own hands shot up, tried to pry the fingers open, but to no avail. He tried to scream, but no sound came past his lips. All his senses zeroed in on that hand, that literal death grip at his throat, bruising fingers crushing tightly. Pain that made all other aches of his body drown away. Animal panic that numbed the world until everything was blurry darkness but that one terrible spot of contact. He scrabbled at that hand, scratched and pulled, but he was sick and weakened, and the Knife of Dunwall had a steel grip. Blackness was encroaching, and his eyes began to roll backwards. _Miscalculated_ , he thought. The errant mind. It was fitting, he supposed. There was no other end for them but death.

The hand disappeared.

Martin coughed harshly, his whole body convulsing off the bed in an adrenaline fuelled fit. Daud simply stepped aside and let him. Air, fresh, delicious air flowed back into his lungs, and he gulped it down hungrily. His chest and throat hurt worse than ever, his heart beating violently and painfully against his ribs, but he could breathe again, and that was all that mattered for the time being. 

“There. A life for a life,” Daud spoke above him, somber. 

“Bastard,” Martin pressed out. 

“I told you, Teague. I made my choices, as did you.”

He walked over to the side table and poured a glass of water, offering it to Martin, who still sat on the floor, leaning against the bed. He took it after sending a baleful look up at a scarred face that had frowned too much over the years. He wouldn’t be grateful, he decided, gulping down the cool wet to soothe the pain. He wouldn’t hold a grudge about this, either. There were too many of those between them already. 

“Maybe it is best this way. I think Attano would like Thomas to disappear and never hear of it again,” Martin croaked after the glass was empty.

“A sensible man,” Daud agreed. He had turned away, his left hand in front of his chest so Martin couldn’t see it. He could guess, though, from the way his head turned from side to side, that he was using those blasted powers of his to see through the walls. The wandering gaze. Martin nearly laughed, thinking how none of his brothers would ever imagine something like this when reciting the strictures. Daud was getting ready to leave, it seemed. Even after what just happened, Martin felt reluctant to just see him go. Another fight they both lost, perhaps. How many could they pile on each other before the burden grew too heavy? With the hardships Martin knew were in his near future, the city’s fate on the brink, and Daud’s own mysterious troubles with some powerful new player in the ever changing game that was Dunwall’s underworld, this not-so-good bye felt a lot more final than Martin was comfortable with. So he spoke up again, still hoarse and blaming the crack in his voice entirely on that. 

“This is the end, then?” 

To his surprise, Daud threw him a look that was bordering on amused, and the mood change nearly gave him whiplash. “Giving up already? I’m sure the bodyguard would be offended if he heard you talking like that.” There was the barest hint of a smile in Daud’s tone, and Martin didn’t know if he should glare or let his mouth pull into a smile as well. Maybe not so final, then. There was always another day to argue. In the end, he settled for a simple, “He isn’t you,” which, of course, wasn’t simple at all. Daud, thankfully, chose to ignore whatever Martin had tried to say and not say, and took the statement at face value. 

“He is a little more like me than he was not long ago.”

“Marked.” 

Daud’s left fist clenched by habit. Instead of answering, he threw the blanket off of Thomas, and started rearranging his limbs in order to lift him over his shoulder. 

“Burrows never had my loyalty, and he lost our services for good. The question is if your Empress can afford either. Or if she’s willing to try.” 

He opened the window again, letting cold air in that went straight into Martin’s lungs. 

“Then I shall find out. How would a potential offer reach you?”

“You know how to find me,” Daud answered, and quieter, more tersely, “Not that you ever do.” 

And then him and his Whaler were gone through the Void, leaving nothing but cold night air behind.


End file.
